Course Resources

The AP U.S. History course focuses on the development of historical thinking skills and an understanding of content organized around seven themes:

Work, Exchange, and Technology

Identity

Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture

America in the World

Environment and Geography

Politics and Power

Peopling

The course is divided into the following nine chronological periods (some units overlap chronologically due to the different concepts covered in each unit):

1491-1607

1607-1754

1754-1800

1800-1848

1844-1877

1865-1914

1890-1945

1945-1989

1980-present

In this course, you’ll develop the following historical thinking skills:

Historical argumentation

Appropriate use of relevant historical evidence

Historical causation

Patterns of continuity and change over time

Periodization

Comparison

Contextualization

Interpretation

Synthesis

AP United States History will:

Provide you with the thinking skills and enduring understandings necessary to deal critically with the main issues and documents of U.S. history

Prepare you for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands upon you equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses

Enable you to assess historical sources — their relevance to a given interpretive problem, their reliability, and their importance — and to weigh the evidence and interpretations of the past presented in historical scholarship

Develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in an essay format

Train you to analyze and interpret primary sources, including documentary materials, maps, statistical tables, and pictorial and graphic evidence of historical events

Teach you to take notes from both printed materials and lectures or discussions, to write essay examinations, and to write analytical and research papers

Enable you to express yourself with clarity and precision and know how to cite sources and credit the phrases and ideas of others

For more detail on the themes, learning objectives, units, key concepts, and skills that will be covered in the redesigned AP U.S. History course and exam, download the AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description.